The Broken Bottle is a currently abandoned honky tonk bar in the middle of a desert that exists in the Lord Huron universe. In it’s heyday, fictional record label owner Tubbs Tarbell discovered many acts in this bar (such as Donny & Midge) but now, and rather oddly, the only thing within this dive that has any life in it is a jukebox. Labelled on the device in a script typeface are the words The Cosmic Selector. The name, along with how it has been photographed away from the bar such as in a forest location, suggests that this is no ordinary music-playing machine. On their latest fifth album The Cosmic Selector Vol 1, project-leader Ben Schneider and his band (Mark Barry, Miguel Briseño and Tom Renaud) take the jukebox that featured in promotional material for previous album Long Lost and put it more centre stage.
Like with previous Lord Huron albums, the Los Angeles group once again mix sandy American wilderness with the paranormal. Songs that on surface level initially seem like that they are about a man who made a romantic mistake and is now left lonesome and endlessly walking whilst digesting his regret, but the circumstances have ghostly undertones; in this case this mysterious Cosmic Selector jukebox. When selecting a song, you are actually choosing your fate. Even if you are impressed by such power, you are powerless anyway as the controls have all been deleteriously mislabelled. The songs on The Cosmic Selector Vol 1 detail fates that have been bestowed upon a confused character. The victims often looking up at the stars in the sky for answers and perplexed at how they got there but also developing an existential mind in the process.
Dejected folk song ‘Looking Back’ details the thoughts of a guy whose lover suddenly abandoned him (“Something changed the day you left, and I’ll never know just what.” ) and because he felt like their bodies and memories were intertwined, without the lover’s presence Ben Schneider’s character is incapable of finding any more meaning in his life. The blurriness of past thoughts is depicted well in the music video as Lord Huron treat their fans to an array of past iconography associated with the band (from characters to locations). One of the perks of being a follower of their music is how the songs and concepts often tie in with each other.
A jukebox clicking sound bridges ‘Looking Back’ with the more energetic blues-rock ‘Bag of Bones’. Although the idiosyncratic Lord Huron story element of someone leaving is present, this track focuses more on broken trust. The Cosmic Selector jukebox has a turned a trusting friendship into one where the central character has taken the fall for their friends mistake. “It was me they got but it should have been you. You were the only one I trusted. But you left town and I got busted. The song’s lyrics will make listeners want to know more about the entrapment. It is one of two songs that feature a harmonica, along with the country song ‘Digging In The Past’ . Although walking through a forest is not unusual, the protagonist is being lured there by “the tombs that glow within” and “by a presence without form” adding a supernatural element to what is musically a straightforward track. Is it something that The Cosmic Selector is responsible for?
Much like the late David Lynch (Lord Huron’s agent at Wasserman records Trey Many once described the group perfectly as being like a ghost bar band in a Lynch film) Ben Schneider is fascinated with endless nocturnal roads. ‘Nothing That I Need’ – which swaps harmonica with banjo while maintaining the album’s country edge – paints the scenario of a guy who keeps being reminded of the scene of his break-up crime by seeing a mirage of his ex-girlfriend no matter what road he turns onto. The Cosmic Selector is taunting the guilt-ridden man. It also features a line which suggests that the jukebox has inflicted a time leap: “I fell asleep and when I woke up, I was old.” Is this foul play from The Cosmic Selector or just ignorance of aging from our protagonist?
Album highlight ‘Who Laughs Last’ is beautifully poetic with its depiction of long journeys on night-time roads. Spoken words segments by actress Kristen Stewart draw the listener into the mindset of a driver who, after succumbing to boredom, tiredness and loneliness, has started hallucinating. Its science fiction elements are made more believable because they are narrated alongside realistic malfunctions. “I found no solace on the radio. Nothing but crackpots and static. UFOs and white noise”. It also features car radio tuning and the gramophone mimicking sound heard on Vide Noir’s ‘Ancient Names (Part I)’ . Lord Huron excel at not only giving flashbacks to previous records but also giving their fans sneak peaks to future albums through cryptic clues, and parts of Stewart’s narration would already have been heard by those who have attended their 2024 concerts – heightening the song’s mystery.
Although the Cosmic Selector jukebox can provide Lord Huron’s characters with stressful fates, it can also put them in situations where they have been forgotten about by the world. On ‘The Comedian‘, a once famous entertainer is writing a letter to the world to alert them of their still existing presence. It sounds sad when Ben Schneider sings: “I wanna feel like I did back then. I wanna see my name in the lights again. I don’t know how I ended up like this. I had the whole wide world at my fingertips.” Yet this nothing compared to the pity you will feel for the loner in ‘Is There Anybody Out There‘. Instead of a letter, he is using a radio broadcast to seek company, as evident by the lyrics:“What’s the worth of a lone soul? Don’t they count ’em by two? / I’ll be waiting right here. I’ll be broadcasting all night.” Ben Schneider cleverly twists the lyrics into making us think that the recluse has finally found a friend but each time it ends up being an illusion. “Glimpsed a ghost in the darkness / It was only my own face faintly mirrored in memory and moonlight.” and “Heard a voice in the vastness / It was only my own noise. Dimly echoed across the years.” Incredibly well-written words indeed.
Musically, The Cosmic Selector Vol.1 isn’t as consistently captivating as previous Lord Huron records, which unfortunately causes a lull in its weaker moments – Kazu Makino-featuring ‘Fire Eternal’, ‘Watch Me Go’, ‘Life Is Strange’ are forgettable in a musical manner. However if you simultaneously listen to Lord Huron’s music while reading the lyrics the excitement and appreciation for the craft will stay throughout. Furthermore, nobody can convince us that a jukebox can possibly have magical powers quite like Lord Huron can.
